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Saturday, April 30, 2011

Marine Le Pen, France’s (Kinder, Gentler) Extremist - NYTimes.com

I've been watching with increasing trepidation at what's been going on in French politics. Although I wish the journalist was a little more critical of Marine Le Pen, the article is worth reading. There are some nuggets in there that are great food for thought...here's a short paragraph towards the end of the story that I thought was worth quoting:

After my interview with Le Pen, I wandered around Belleville, the Parisian neighborhood long associated with North African immigrants, and stopped in a Tunisian restaurant for lunch. Not surprisingly, mentioning the name Marine Le Pen got everyone in the restaurant wound up. Much of what was said is unprintable, but a customer named Mourad Bouznif gave me his critique of Le Pen’s immigration ideas. “I’m very lucky,” he said. “My wife is an attorney, and I am a teacher. We are welcome in Paris. But the unskilled Tunisians, the sort of people who historically built France, Le Pen wants to leave them behind.” When I asked if he was Tunisian, he corrected me — “I am Franco-Tunisian” — a rebuke to the National Front’s oft-voiced suspicions about the Frenchness of immigrants. Keep reading - Marine Le Pen, France’s (Kinder, Gentler) Extremist - NYTimes.com